(8 of 15)
Everybody laughed—except John Mitchell. I knew, of course, that the Republican convention had been moved from San Diego to Miami. What I didn 't know was that after the Democrats moved out and the Republicans moved in, John Mitchell would be staying in the suite just vacated by George McGovern.
Mitchell didn't laugh, he roared: "Goddamn it, Liddy; that's where I'm staying. You better not have any hippies pissing all over my rug!" When I rose to leave, Mitchell said, with a twinkle in his eye, "I mean it; keep those weirdos out of my room."
"Yes, sir." I smiled and left to tell Howard Hunt to call off "Pissers for McGovern."
The Ill-Fated Second Entry
About 11 o'clock McCord came in [to Room 214 of the Watergate Hotel] and said that he'd already taped the garage-level doors by the simple expedient of going in the lobby and down the stairwell. He now wanted to go back to the observation post.
At about 12:45 a.m. McCord phoned to say "It's clear" and that he was on his way over. Within a few minutes McCord, Barnard Barker and Eugenio Martinez were back wearing troubled expressions. McCord said that when they had gotten down to the garage-level doors they found that the tape he had put across the locks earlier had been removed. Hunt wanted to abort. McCord said Virgilio Gonzalez was unlocking the doors from the garage side so we could go forward or not, however it was decided.
The decision was up to me. I knew that lock-taping was a common, if disapproved practice of maintenance personnel in large buildings. That should not have alarmed the guard, who could be expected to remove it. I decided to send the men in.
The team of five did go through that garage-to-stairwell door and on up the stairs—failing to remove the now-functionless tape from the door. This was fatal since it was only after finding the same door taped a second time that the guards called the police.
Just after 2 a.m. there was a transmission over the radio:
"There's flashlights on the eighth floor." I repeated the news to Hunt. We agreed that it was probably one of the two guard forces making a 2 a.m. door check.
Another transmission seemed to support our theory: "Now they're on the seventh floor."
There was a pause, then came the query, in a wondering tone:
"Hey, any of our guys wearin' hippie clothes?"
It was only then that Hunt and I realized that something was very wrong.
"Negative. All our people are in business suits. Why?"
"They're on the sixth floor now. Four or five guys. One's got on a cowboy hat. One's got on a sweatshirt. It looks like ... guns! They've got guns. It's trouble!"
I hit the mike switch: "Are you reading this? Come in! That's an order!" That brought the last transmission we were to receive from the entry team. A whispered